Running 2022 Golf Thread

Coercing suppliers is not anti trust behavior unless that prevents you from entering the market. Key point, the competitor in that analysis would be the LIV tour owner,NOT the players. If the suppliers to the players were being coerced then this is relevant. In the USFL case, it was owners v owners. It wasn’t Csonka v NFL.

I don’t see a case. Again, the Tour only kicked them out when they jumped ship.

 

Again, I think the distinction will be drawn by this simple fact: PGA Tour players are not employees of the PGA Tour. The PGA Tour is not a company, league or team with owners and general managers. LIV, on the other hand, signs players to contracts and there are mandatory appearances.

 

This jumped out at me.

The plaintiffs seem keen to compare their earning power via the PGA Tour to professional athletes in other sports. For instance, the average salary increases of NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL players from 2014-2019 are all cited within the lawsuit. For the NFL, that’s 15%, a greater increase than any other major pro sport. For the plaintiffs like Mickelson, the perceived salary increases are the Tour’s average purse increases, which increased by 2.5% per year, on average.

Much the same is being said for the the PGA Tour’s popularity and TV ratings. Cited in the suit is the following:

Out of 27 PGA Tour tournaments for which data are available, 16 tournaments (almost 60 percent) had viewership in 2019 that was below the five-year average for that tournament.” How is this data being used? To argue that the Tour’s product of broadcasting events had grown “stale.”

So TV ratings are down yet they feel they should be paid more in line with sports where ratings are bigger. Oh okay. Hey maybe ratings are down because the interesting dude can’t play anymore and the rest of them are a bunch of nondescript dildos in white belts.

 

LIV Tour players try just as hard.

 

Proof that money can't buy grace.

 

Joining LIV, a bad look.

Admitting you “begged” for a LIV invitation and didn’t get it, a worse look.

https://golf.com/news/john-daly-begged-greg-norman-liv-golf-spot/

 

“We make tent visits. We do this, we do that. I play two-to-three pro-ams every week on the Champions Tour, and you know we don’t play for a lot of money on the Champions Tour. So, I almost feel like, ‘OK, I’m not getting a lot out of this. What are we doing?'”

Daly said the situation is much different on the LIV Tour.

“It’s a big party. They play for a lot of money, which these guys that are on that tour deserve that money,” Daly said. “I think there’s a lot of others guys that deserve that money, especially this old man.”

The word “deserves” is going to get a hernia from that kind of work that it’s putting in within that sentence.

 

The PGA Tour is not a team sport. Any comparisons are foolish. And it's still just a niche sport, so why would the plaintiffs believe that revenue should be on a pace with the NFL, NBA, NHL or MLB? Check the ratings.
But the real reason you can't compare Tour players' revenue potential with pro team sports is the latter athletes are washed up at 35 if not sooner. Golfers are just hitting their prime ... then they play for free money on the Champions Tour. Plus, no one's trying to take your knees out in golf.

 

So, if the LIVers win the TRO to play, why shouldn't the 3 guys ranked 123, 124 and 125 who get bumped also sue? They played by the rules and qualified.